I live in a land called Mid-America. Here, we want less government involvement in our lives. And we're mostly non-elite, working middle-class. "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson

Friday, April 24, 2009

Just bought gasoline? You paid taxes. Made a phone call? You paid taxes. Bought tires? You paid taxes. Cigarettes? Beer? Of course, you paid the sin tax. Traded stock? You'll pay taxes. Sold something? Probably have to pay taxes. Bought a house? You paid taxes. Sold a house? You paid taxes. Flew on an airplane. You paid taxes. Got your paycheck? You paid taxes. Buy a car? You paid taxes. Turned on your lights? You paid taxes. Traded something for something? You paid taxes. You died? Your heirs may have to pay taxes again on assets you've already paid taxes on...

And the Democrats want more.

It never ends. The federal tax code alone is now 70,000 pages. Six hundred forms. When does it end?

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

One of the causes of the terrible crisis we had over the last few years, which has given us today's problem, it came from people being pushed into buying houses -- taking homes that they couldn't afford.

As Rush points out, who did that? Why, it was Barney Frank himself, with his steadfast backing of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

But Franks says:

It was a conservative view that rental housing was a bad thing. I have been trying to continue programs to build descent rental housing. What we had were in people in power who didn't like that, and they said no, no, we'll help them become homeowners.

Frank was the one in power who was pushing homeownership, not rentals. If you don't believe it, see my blog for September 26, 2008.

And now, in a separate story, students at American University don't want Franks to speak at their school.

About 130 American University students are asking school administrators to withdraw Barney Frank’s invitation to deliver a commencement address to AU’s School of Public Affairs in a few weeks. The students blame the fiery House Financial Services Committee chairman for the financial meltdown, singling out his longtime support of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as contributing to the severity of the crisis and magnitude of bailouts.

Who elected this guy, anyway? Ah, that's right. The people of Massachusetts.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Susan Estrich -- who is orginally from Massachusetts and now lives in California -- basically condemned Rick Perry, governor of Texas, in a recent op-ed.

"What makes it easy for Perry to "fire up" the crowds, as local headlines put it, is what makes it irresponsible for him, or anyone else who calls himself a leader, to do so."

Isn't this what politicians from both sides attempt to do: "fire up" crowds? What is her problem?

Is Washington spending too much money? I don't know. If the people of Texas want to give theirs back, if they really think they have more than they'll need to educate their kids and care for their sick and help their newly homeless, then all I can say is that California most certainly does not and would be happy to have any leftovers from anywhere. Gov. Perry, meet Gov. Schwarzenegger. His hand is out. But angry talk by those who are supposed to be leaders can only lead to even angrier words or deeds by those who follow them, not understanding that it was just political talk in the first place.

Give me a break. We're not going to give California money. Texas is one of the few states with a budget surplus, so we really don't need to have the feds tell us what to do. Texas has been run by conservatives for at least the last 12 years; California by liberals. We have lower unemployment, lower housing costs, a balanced budget and do not need government handouts to survive.

Tell that to California democrats, who have basically destroyed their state.

We all know that Rep. Barney Frank caused a lot of our financial woes, mostly through inaction. For years he refused to act -- or prevented other committee members from acting -- when warned of the pending doom of Freddie and Fannie. (If you don't believe this, you haven't been paying attention; Google it.)

Now, Frank is back at it again. This time he wants the government to get in the business of guaranteeing municipals, which are already insured by private insurance. I guess he wants to undercut private companies -- though I don't know why.

And he assures everyone that it won't cost the taxpayer a cent, just like he told us about Freddie and Fannie.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

When left-wing AriannaHuffington starts criticizing the Obama administration's handling of the economy, you know something just ain't right.

Talking about our financial crisis with them [Obama's economic team] is like beaming back to the 2nd century and discussing astronomy with Ptolemy.

Wow! That's quite a statement coming from an ardent Obama supporter. In reading her full article, I may have to agree with her solution, as vague as it is, because it's more conservative than liberal. In brief, she wants to move government out of the solution and put it in the hands of the American people. In her own words:

The longer bank-centrism is the dominant cosmology in the Obama administration -- and the longer it takes to switch to a plan that reflects a cosmology in which the American people are the center of the universe and are deemed too-big-to-fail -- the greater the risk that the economic crisis will be more prolonged than necessary. And the greater the suffering the crisis will continue to cause.

Look, capitalism is based on letting losers fail, and someone will fill the vacuum with winners. People do get hurt. This is the brutal honesty of capitalism. In a socialistic state, the state props up entities, whether successful or not. Socialism strives for equal results, not equal opportunity. This is why socialism has not worked. Ask your average Hungarian, former East German, or Czech.

Americans have one thing going for them. When things are at their worst, we seem to be at our best.